


The Adventures of Buyo the Wise

by Empatheia



Category: InuYasha - A Feudal Fairy Tale
Genre: Bad Fic, Comedy, Crack, Crack Pairing, F/M, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-06-16
Updated: 2006-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-08 00:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/437194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empatheia/pseuds/Empatheia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's a cat. And a sexy, arrogant time god. Concepts not as mutually exclusive as one might think. (Buyo/everyone.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Hairball

**_**Greetings, foolish mortals. Cower before my might and beg for my favour. I am the great and terrible lord of time and space, and the only one worthy of your worship. I am...** _ **

"Ow, Buyo! Quit scratching!"

_**Pathetic hairless creature. Tremble before my wrath. Or feed me. Or both.** _

The girl was home today, as she had not been of late. She was much easier to coerce extra food out of. That made Buyo a very happy, very fat cat.

"It isn't dinnertime yet... but I suppose you can have it early today, just this once."

_**Well done, human! You have my gratitude. For this, I shall let you live a while longer**.  _

Kagome sighed and stretched luxuriously back from her homework. She was in college now, though only taking a few courses so that she could keep up while still searching in the Sengoku Jidai for the last shards, and by extension, Naraku. Gone was the gangly, obnoxious child of the beginning of the story — she had been forged by the fires of her life into something stronger though not harder, more scarred but also more beautiful.

Buyo was very proud of her. He regarded her as his best work to date, as a matter of fact.

" _Nee-chan!_ " Souta howled, tearing into the room in a panic. The boy was taller than her, now, but still childish in manner.

Kagome sighed. "What is it now, Souta?"

The boy's eyes were big as saucers and he was pale as a sheet. "Th-there's a spider! In the bath tub! It's a really, really big one!"

Buyo sneezed. _**Big, you say? And juicy? I shall vanquish it and have it for an appetizer**. _ He meowed loudly and waddled out of the room.

"Do you want it, Buyo?" Kagome called. "Go ahead, I'm too busy to go spider-slaying right now. Honestly, Souta, you ought to be over this fear by now. You're bigger than I am, for goodness' sakes!"

The boy shuffled his feet behind Buyo. "I know, but they're so..." He was out of earshot.

The bathroom door was open, conveniently, and Buyo trotted in. Something became clear to him very quickly. This was no ordinary spider.

 _**Cho-chan? Is that you?**_ he projected incredulously in the general direction of the tub.

 _I **thought I told you not to call me that** , _a scratchy voice responded testily. **_My name is Choushiko, as you well know. It's not that difficult to pronounce. I am no airheaded butterfly, so keep your pretty nicknames to yourself._**

Buyo tensed. __This was bad. She should not have been on this side. If she was here, that meant something was wrong over there._ _

Projecting again, he directed his thoughts at the miniature demon he could sense past the porcelain walls. **_Why are you here, Choushiko? What has happened?_**

_**Myouga asked me to come. He said to tell you that**_ —

At that exact moment, Mrs. Higurashi with her perfect mother-like timing bustled into the bathroom with an arm full of brand new bathroom supplies. Humming happily to herself, she walked in, spotted the enormous arachnid scrabbling pathetically in her tub, shrieked, and dropped the enormous fresh jug of lavender bubble bath she'd just bought.

The sound it made connecting with Buyo's head was cringeworthy. Brilliant points of light swallowed his vision, and then the darkness swallowed them.

Buyo passed out in a puddle of fuzzy fat on the bathroom floor.

**x**

Kagome sat on her backpack viciously, and smiled when she felt everything in it settle another half inch. Now she could fit in her comfiest silk nightie... it was summer, and very very hot in the feudal era. Her flannel pajamas were more modest, but she'd been traveling with the others so long she no longer cared overmuch about how she looked. They'd already seen everything there was to see... why shouldn't she at least be comfortable?

"I'm off, Mom!" she cried as she headed out the door. There was no answer, but Kagome didn't think twice about it.

They would all be waiting for her on the other side. She'd been back home for nearly a week, and missed them all ferociously. Sango was waiting for Kagome to bring her a new bottle of conditioner for her hair, Shippo would be looking forward to some pocky and lollipops, and she had an entire case of miscellaneous ramen for Inuyasha. For Miroku, she had some dark chocolate, his new obsession, and for Kirara, a new toy.

Kagome was now quite wealthy, though no one but her knew about it. Last year she'd gotten a brainstorm of quite an impressive magnitude even for her. It was simple but brilliant.

Step #1) Find a place in her time that was untouched by development and fairly stable, like a cave or rocky landmark. Easy enough.

Step #2) Hop into the well, talk Kaede into parting with a few of her old bowls and mathomsand other such mundane artifacts.

Step #3) Locate the place she'd found in her time, wrap the artifacts so they wouldn't get too damaged, and bury them.

Step #4) Return to her time, dig the now very old artifacts up.

Step #5) Sell them to the university and various collectors for lots and lots of money.

Her friends were very happy with this arrangement, because money for her meant presents for them, so they'd begun giving up some of their own personal effects for her diabolical scheme. They would be eagerly awaiting the latest installment.

Movements smooth with years of habit, she swung the backpack over the edge of the well and let it pull her over with it. As she fell, she waited patiently for the blue light to start up and swallow her, welcoming her to the other time where half her heart belonged.

It didn't come.

The backpack broke her fall, but she still had a very painful landing on the bottom of the modern-day well.

 _What the heck?_ she thought, bewildered.

The panic did not set in until she got back into the house.

_Oh my god! It's broken! What if I can't ever get back? What if Inuyasha can't come here? Oh my god! Oh my god!_

Her mother was sitting at the table with a lump of fur on her lap, holding a cold compress to what might have been its head.

"What's wrong with Buyo?" she cried, sure now that she was dreaming all the horror up and that she would wake up suffocating to death under Buyo's fat midriff.

"I dropped the bubble bath on him. He's out cold."

_That's weird. Buyo's out, the well stops working? Wow, this is a crappy day._

"Aww, poor baby," she cooed, stroking the limp fur.

_... **What did you call me?**_

Absolute silence. Kagome could not move.

"Mom? Feel my forehead. Do I have a fever?" she asked shakily.

Mrs. Higurashi pressed a cool hand to her head. "No, darling, you feel fine. Why? Is something wrong?"

"I could have sworn Buyo just talked to me. In my head. Quick, have me committed before I start believing I'm a refridgerator!"

Her mother laughed.

"I'm serious, Mom! He sounded really ticked off that I called him a baby..."

"Mrrrow."

"Oh look, he's awake. How are you feeling, old boy?"

_**Watch who you're calling old, hag!**_

"He just called you a hag, Mom. Aaaggghhh! I _am_ crazy!"

_**Crazy? You don't look crazy to me... in fact, if you can hear me, then you're actually much smarter now than before. It's an improvement. Now would you please tell your maternal parent to take that infernal thing off my head. It's cold.**_

"He says to take the compress off his head. He doesn't like it."

Mrs. Higurashi stared at Kagome. "Honey... come back and let me feel your forehead again."

"Meck! Mrrrowww, mrrrrhisss."

"He says I'm not crazy, it's just... just that _you're_ deaf. Buyo!"

_**Shut up, mortal, and take me back to the bathroom. I was in the middle of something. She better not have squished Choushiko!** _

"Please tell that's not the spider's name."

_**Of course it is! Who did you think I was talking about?** _

"I don't know! But Choushiko? That's so... pretty!"

Mrs. Higurashi took one last look at her beloved daughter, pride of her life, holding an intense one-way conversation with the fat family cat and fainted unceremoniously.

Kagome took just enough time to ensure that she was comfortably situated on the floor before bolting for the bathroom with Buyo in tow.

"Eww," she said upon spotting the basketball-sized arachnid.

_**Well, I never! Have you no manners, child? How would you like it if I told you I thought you were disgusting too?**_

"That spider just spoke to me," she told her pink loufa matter-of-factly.

**_Of course she did. She loves to talk. Don't you, Cho?_**

_**Choushiko! Cretin!** _

"What the hell is going on here?" Kagome cried in frustration. "I totally don't get it!"

Buyo sat down and began washing himself regally. _**It's not like it's that complicated. I am a god. Of time. The well is an experiment of mine. It depends on me being conscious... so if you just tried to go through, that's why it didn't work. Choushiko is a fellow time god, but not as talented.**_

Kagome looked down at him for a long, somber moment.

Then burst out laughing hysterically. She doubled over, crossing her arms across her spasming middle as though she was afraid she'd rip in half. Tears of mirth started, then spilled over.

"Oh my god," she said. "You expect me to believe that? I'm sort of okay now with animals talking to me... but 'time god?' Give me a break."

Miffed, Buyo swatted her bare leg with his claws half-unsheathed.

"Ouch!"

**_Serves you right. I tell you my big secret, and you laugh. Disrespectful little whelp._ **

"Who're you calling little? You're like an eighth my size!"

_**What? ...Oh, you mean this form. Time gods kind of draw attention whenever they walk around in humanoid form, so we usually choose to be as inconspicuous as possible.**_

Kagome gulped, swallowing her laughter so he could ask some semi-coherent questions. "One: you have a human form? Two: what's it look like? And three: you call _that_ — _"_ She pointed at the ridiculously large spider. " — _inconspicuous?"_

Buyo had the grace to look embarassed. **_Well, some of us have personalities not well equipped to being truly inconspicuous. Choushiko is one such. I prefer to look like this because it fits my personality._**

"Because you like being fed and cuddled, right? You're such a suck, you big baby."

**_Harrumph. That's not quite right... I just enjoy being touched, and no one gets touched more than a cat. I'm fat because it makes more of me to touch._**

"So what do you really look like, then?" she asked, bursting with curiosity.

 ** _Well, time gods don't really have true corporeal forms, we're more like extrusions of the forces of the universe. But when I'm human, I look rather like this._** The bathroom exploded into greenish mist which was not wet, and Kagome choked.

When it cleared, there was a man standing where the obese feline had been. He looked to be about twenty-eight, had reddish black hair, and pale creamy skin. He was very tall, and not in the least bit fat. Quite the opposite, actually.

Aside from all that, he was stunningly attractive. "Oh," Kagome said in a small voice. "Um, whoa?"

"What does that mean?" 'Buyo' asked snarkily. His voice sounded like Sesshoumaru's, but with Inuyasha's inflections.

"It means... oh, hell with it! _Damn,_ you're fine!" The appreciative hormonal college girl in Kagome was out in full force. _I had_ this _sleeping on my face all my life? Oh, the missed opportunities!_ "Out of curiosity, how old are you?"

He looked at her, nonplussed. "Two words for you, puny mortal. 'Time.' 'God.'"

"So you're like... really old, right?"

"Kagome. I don't have an age. _I am time._ "

"Whatever," she said airily, obviously not getting it, "you're still hot."

There was another explosion of mist, red this time, and then there was a woman standing in the bathtub. Kagome had to bite her tongue at the absurdity of the image. That woman did not belong in a bathtub.

She looked as though she'd stepped out of Dominatrix Monthly, or at least been dipped in a vat of S&M accessories. Everything was either black and leather or red and lace, and there were silver buttons and chains on _everything._ Her hair was short and bright red, and redefined 'spiky' with its mere existence. She was very pretty, but also very, very scary.

"Hands off my man, lackey," she snapped.

"Urk," Kagome squeaked. The bathroom suddenly seemed very crowded.

Buyo turned around and fixed the still distinctly spider-like woman with a patient glance. "For the last time, Cho-chan, I'm not your man. You know Naraku would be very jealous if he heard you saying that."

That got Kagome's attention. "Hang on... _Naraku?_ "

"Ugh. Self-centered pig," Choushiko growled. "But still... that thing he does with his tentacles..."

Kagome screeched and covered her ears. "Oh my god! Too much information!"

"And what about you?" Choushiko continued. "Does Kirara know about your little habit of sleeping on Kagome's face?"

" _Kirara?"_

Buyo suddenly looked extremely guilty. "Oi, don't tell her, all right? She's not very fun to be around when she's angry, you know, with the fire and all..."

"I'm dreaming. Or dead. Or crazy. Maybe all three...?"

She looked up to find the spider-woman regarding her thoughtfully. That look made her very, very uncomfortable.

"Er, what? Do I have food on my face or something?"

Instead of answering her, Choushiko turned to Buyo and pulled his ear down to her level to whisper something. Buyo listened carefully. First he looked disgusted, then thoughtful, then a slow smile spread.

"Hmm. Interesting idea."

"What? What's interesting?" Kagome howled.

"Choushiko thinks we should have a threesome on the sly, hush hush, you know. So that Naraku and Kirara don't feel left out."

Kagome fainted.

Buyo and Choushiko looked at each other.

"So what were you doing here again?" Buyo asked.

"Oh, Myouga asked me to come invite you to the wedding of a friend of his."

"Whose?"

"Jinenji."

"Oooh, he finally found a girl, did he? Who is it?"

"Shiori."

"The bat girl? Isn't she a little... young?"

"Age makes no difference to true love!" Choushiko's eyes filled with stars. "They're such a sweet couple... both hanyou, both all quiet and nice and whatever... Myouga was thrilled. He and Jinenji are fast friends now."

"Didn't you promise Myouga a date?" Buyo casually remarked, reminded.

"I was considering it... he has like, six arms. That could be very interesting. And what about you? I thought you had plans with Hiyashimaru?"

"Ugh, he's so _clingy._ I think that one's pretty much over."

"What about Jaken? He's always liked you!"

"He's an amphibian! Yuck!"

"Racist pig."

"Hey, I like _you_!"

"That proves nothing. So... Hachiemon, then."

"We broke up a while ago. You're so out of touch! Where have you been, spinning webs on Sakhalin Island?"

"What about... Kouryu!"

"That little lizard? Not worth my time. Besides, he likes _you_."

"Argh! Fine then! What about..."

Kagome woke up, listened, and promptly fainted all over again. Her last thought was _Buyo and...? Gross._

**X**

—


	2. Normality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buyo summons up a few new lackeys.

"You know, this probably isn't a very good idea."

"Shut _up_ , Ayumi!" Yuka whispered fiercely. "She'll hear us!"

"Remind me again why we're sneaking into Kagome's room in the middle of the night?" Eri murmured.

"Because... because... well, dammit. There _was_ a reason, I _know_ there was!" Yuka smacked her fists together, frustrated. "I just don't think so well at four in the morning."

"I don't think many people do, Yuka. But wasn't there something about a cat? And a voice in our heads?"

"Maybe. That rings a bell. Let's just concentrate on getting up there. My feet are getting tired from balancing on this ledge."

"Ouch! Quit poking me! Why does she have to be on the second floor anyways?"

"I don't know. Just to frustrate us, I guess."

"Here, Eri, give me a leg up. Oof!"

With a thud, Yuka landed on her midriff across Kagome's windowsill.

"Shh!"

"Shut up!" She turned around and offered a hand to her precariously balanced friends. Within a few harrowing moments, they all stood in the middle of the tiny bedroom. Kagome, still fast asleep, murmured and turned over. Her friends froze, but relaxed as soon as they realized she wasn't waking up.

Then there was silence.

"So, um... now what?" Ayumi ventured timidly. "We're here."

"I noticed, dimwit. I can't remember."

_**Aha! So you came, puny mortals! I am well pleased.** _

All three girls muffled shrieks behind their hands as a booming voice echoed through their minds. In the true manner of high school girls, they glommed on to one another to form an impenetrable knot of girlflesh in the middle of the room.

_"Who was that?"_

"I don't know!"

_**Who am I, you ask? Why, I am the great and terrible Buyo, lord of time and space! Have you never heard of me?** _

"Buyo?" Eri asked faintly. "As in... Kagome's cat?"

_**Foolish mortal woman! I am no mere cat! I am a Time God! Bow before me!** _

"Well, uh, sure...where are you? Kind of hard to bow to someone when you don't know where they are." Was it just their imagination, or did the silence sound rather sullen? A short, sullen silence, then.

_**Impudence! Right here!** _

Ayumi yowled as sharp claws suddenly scored her calves. "Hey! Not nice! _Bad_ kitty!" Her leg reflexively jerked and sent the morbidly obese feline... er, rolling.

"Sorry!" she whispered immediately, feeling only a little bit guilty. Her leg _hurt_. And that meant that she wasn't dreaming, the conclusion she'd been holding firmly in her mind during the entire escapade.

_So I'm really standing in Kagome's room with Eri and Yuka, and I'm really talking to Kagome's cat, and he's really talking back. Is it possible to go insane and not know it?_

"So, um... Kagome's cat..."

_**Buyo!** _

"...Whatever. What are we doing here? Why did you call us in the middle of the night?"

 ** _Harrumph. Well, if you must know, I called you for a very important reason._** He began to lick himself in a place none of the girls wanted to know about.

Grimacing, Yuka crossed her arms. "Which was...?" she prompted coldly.

**_I am hungry._ **

Defeaning silence ensued for a good thirty seconds, during which Buyo continued to be engrossed by the anatomy of the area beneath his tail.

Then: "You're... _hungry?_ What does that have to do with us?"

_**My humans refuse to get out of bed and feed me, no matter what I do to them. Thus, I was forced to find outside methods.** _

More silence.

"But didn't you say you were like, a god or something? You're a great and powerful being but you can't even get food?"

And... silence. Buyo appeared to be considering something.

_**It appears that the lack of food has affected my brain. Why didn't I think of that?** _

"Think of what? What are you going to—"

_SPROOT_

It was not a very pleasant sound, and it was accompanied by great volumes of greenish, acrid mist.

"Ew!" they cried simultaneously.

This time, Kagome woke up. "What the heck...?" she muttered, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. She sat up and looked at her three terrified friends. Her brow furrowed. "This is one heck of a weird dream. Why are you guys in my room? And what's with all the smelly green stuff?"

"I apologize for that. Unfortunately I still have not devised a way to transform without it." The new voice was deep, smooth, and male.

Yuka, Eri, and Ayumi could not possibly have been more terrified without passing out. They knew that the only men in Kagome's house were Souta, who was too young to have such a sexy voice, and Grandpa, who was far too old. So who was...?

"Buyo!" Kagome shrieked. "This is _your_ doing, isn't it!"

_Buyo...?_

The mist cleared to reveal a man so ridiculously and unexpectedly attractive the three unexpected visitors nearly forgot the weirdness of the entire venture.

"Oh my _god_ ," Yuka whispered dreamily. "That's what a Time God looks like? Can I have one for my birthday?"

Buyo flipped his wine-black hair over his broad shoulder and stared at them imperiously. His head nearly scraped the roof, and his pale skin seemed to glow in the murk of Kagome's bedroom. "Now you see. Bow before me!"

"Sure!" Yuka chirruped. "Can I kiss your feet, too?"

Buyo regarded her for a long moment with one eyebrow lifted aristocratically. "I like your attitude, human," he said at last.

"Buyo! Mind telling me why my friends are standing in my room in the middle of the night?" Kagome growled.

"He says he was hungry," Ayumi replied, dazed. "I guess he wanted us to feed him since you wouldn't wake up..."

"Hey, Buyo," Yuka said craftily, riding right over Ayumi. "What kind of food do you like? My family owns a restaurant not far from here. If you're willing to wait a bit for me, I can fire up the kitchens and make you whatever you like."

"Holy hell," Eri said to herself.

"Amen," Kagome echoed. She was mostly awake now, she thought, but her friends were still there and Yuka was still flirting outrageously with her cat. _Whatever happened to the good old days when the most exciting thing that ever happened was someone famous coming to visit the shrine, when the well led nowhere but a pile of dirt, and the cat was just a cat?_

"I would be honoured to sample your cuisine, human. Lead the way."

Beaming with a sightly neurotic light, Yuka marched down and out of the house with the tall Time God trailing after her.

"Oi, Kagome," Eri said faintly. "The hell was that?"

Out loud, Kagome said "Just another ordinary night at the Higurashi Shrine."

"Oh."

**X**


	3. ZOMG TREW LURVE

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buyo meets his match. Prequel to the first two chapters.

It was a horrible, rainy day.

Buyo hated those. His fur smelled disgusting when it was wet, and stuck to him in a most uncomfortable manner. And to make matters worse than they already were, he was locked out of the house.

_**Damn those humans. No respect.** _

Of course, being a Time God, he could always just transform and let himself back in. But then, he would just be a wet human-form, and everyone would know his secret. He sighed. It seemed there was nothing for it. He would have to _get off his ass_. What an absolute disgrace.

He began to roll in order to gain enough momentum stand up. While upside down, he noticed something very curious: the door to the wellhouse was open.

 ** _Hmm, I haven't been back in a while,_** he thought. **_Maybe the sun is shining in the Sengoku Jidai?_**

Simple as that, it was decided. Buyo was going back in time five hundred years to get out of the rain. No big deal.

Finally, he was going fast enough and managed to get his feet under him. Once balanced, he waddled to the wellhouse and with a very great amount of effort, hurled his rotund body over the wooden lip and fell.

**x**

As he had hoped, the sun was shining merrily on the other side. He could see blue sky through the little square high above his head. Very, very high above his head.

_**Bedamned.** _

Buyo had found himself a pretty little predicament.

He sat down to take the weight of his short, spindly legs and stared morosely up at the cloudless sky.

_**Now what?** _

In his cat form, his brain was rather small and he had difficulty thinking in complete sentences. Concocting a plan to get out of there was quite a stretch for his limited supply of brainpower.

 ** _Hey, can I levitate?_** he thought suddenly. ** _I seem to remember that I can._** There was nothing for it but to try, so he told his body in no uncertain terms that it was _time to levitate._ And lo and behold, it did!

He floated with the ease of a feather up the long, dank shaft until he reached the top, whereupon he remembered that he actually _couldn't_ levitate after all, and nearly fell all the way back down.

Splayed uncomfortably over the edge of the well, he reflected that wood polish was a _wonderful_ invention indeed. Splinters were less fun than rain, and he now had a good two dozen impaling his flesh.

Buyo scrabbled frantically at the wood with his claws, but discovered that he was well and truly stuck. He could not pull himself out of the well. Perhaps he should transform now...?

But no, he could not do that. Because the majority of his body weight was pulling him _into_ the well, transforming would most likely end with his human form suspended in the middle of the shaft. And then he would fall, and it would hurt. Transform? No. _No._

However, he did have to find a way off the bloody well. He tried to levitate again, but failed. Apparently it had been a one-shot thing.

And then, he heard absolutely _the_ most unwelcome sound that that _ever_ assailed his ears — the girlish snicker of another feline. With an effort he twisted his head to look, and was confronted by the highly amused face of a firecat demon. A very _pretty_ firecat demon.

_**This really isn't my day.** _

_What are you doing up there_? the lovely cream-and-black vision asked him.

 ** _I'm stuck,_** he answered tiredly, beyond humiliation.

_Oh. Hang on, I'll get you down._

**_What...?_** Buyo yowled as the delicate little flower suddenly flamed and became a very _big_ flower, with teeth as long as his legs. She picked him up gently by the scruff of his neck and deposited him safely on the grass. His midriff moaned with relief.

 ** _My thanks to you, lady,_** he said primly. **_That was embarrassingly undignified._**

 _Don't worry about it,_ she said in an offhand tone. _Rescuing idiots is my job_.

 ** _...I beg your pardon?_** he hissed. **_I'll have you know that I am a great and powerful_** —

 _Time God, yeah, I know,_ she cut him off, sounding bored. _My friend Choushiko told me about you._

Buyo visibly deflated.

_Anyway, you're welcome. My name is Kirara, and yours is Buyo. What brings you through the well?_

In the space of thirty seconds, this wondrous creature had him completely tied in knots. He stuttered and spit, attempting to answer, but kept stumbling over his suddenly overlarge tongue.

There were several things in her words that he had to address, but his damned fuzzy mouth just would not work. She knew Choushiko, the Time God who took the form of a spider? She was _friends_ with Choushiko? She knew that the well went places other than Wormland? She knew his _name_?

Giving up on his cat-brain as a lost cause, he resolved to transform at last. A moment later, he stood six foot three, human, and gorgeous before the enormous firecat, who looked (irritatingly) only mildly surprised.

 _Choushiko was right_ , she mused. _You **are** pretty. Not as pretty as me, though._

Buyo ran long, pale fingers through his silky hair and preened. **_It took me a long time to design this form. I'm glad you like it. ...Wait. Not as pretty as you?_**

Another spat of flame, and Kirara was human.

In an instant, Buyo knew he had lost utterly and completely. She was incredible. Her colouring was much like that of her feline form — pale skin, black hair. However, her eyes were like nothing he had ever seen before — they were the exact shade of wood flames and danced just like them.

She really _was_ prettier than him.

And so, naturally, he fell in love. What else could he do?

Forgetting all about her unexpected relationship with Choushiko, he dropped gracefully to one knee, captured her hand, and kissed it for rather a long time.

"Excuse me," she said. "That's my hand you're slobbering on."

"Oh, goddess of flame," he breathed. "Would you do me the honour of—"

"No."

Affronted, he pulled back and sulked. "You haven't even heard what it is yet!"

"I don't need to. Whatever it is, no."

"I just wanted—"

"No."

"But—"

" _No!"_

"Fine! Then I won't ask!" he snarled.

"Good," she replied smugly.

"...I'll just do it."

"Wha... urk!"

He seized her in strong arms and kissed her passionately.

As he'd suspected, she surrendered after a few minutes of concentrated effort at seduction on his part. She draped herself limply across his body in what he believed to be a truly magnificent swoon. Until, that is, her head flopped bonelessly sideways and he noted her slack face.

"That's the first time I've rendered a woman unconscious from sheer bliss!" he gloated. Then an uncomfortable possibility occurred to him... were those struggles perhaps struggles for _air_ and not coy protests as he'd thought?

Horrified, he set her limp form down on the grass and stepped away. **_She's going to kill me when she regains consciousness. What do I do? Um... run!_**

He then proceeded to do so, eating up the ground with long strides. He had no plan except to _get away_.

The last thing he expected was to run into a very familiar face.

"Kagome!" he gasped. She was surrounded by some scary looking people that he assumed were the infamous Inuyasha, Miroku, and Sango. Near his feet he thought he saw a bushy red tail attached to a very small person. Shippou.

"Hello," Kagome said cordially. "Can we help you? And how do you know my name?"

"No! No help! Move, I'm running away!"

"Er, all right then," Kagome said, and stepped aside.

"Hey, don't talk to Kagome like that! At least say thank you!"

"It's okay, Inuyasha," the petite girl said. "He's obviously in quite a hurry. But... doesn't he look kind of familiar? Did he kick our asses once? I'm losing track..."

The rest was obscured by the growing distance.

Buyo ran for all he was worth. It was disgraceful to be running from a mere demon, he realized, but he had seen her claws. They were very sharp and would cause a lot of damage to his pretty form. He didn't feel as much pain as most creatures did, not being exactly mortal, but he did know what it was. He usually went out of his way to avoid it if at all possible.

It was then that he became aware of something disquieting. The firecat's demonic signature was getting _stronger,_ not weaker, as he ran.

Soon, it was upon him. He glanced behind in a panic, but saw nothing. Head craned around, he searched the path desperately for any hint of his pursuer. According to his senses, she was right on top of him...

Having lived for as long as he had, one would think he'd have learned _not_ to run without looking where he was going. He did not see Kirara or the paw she extended with cruel accuracy.

The landing was very painful indeed. The landing she made on top of him a split second later was even worse. He swore he heard a rib or two crack.

"My firecat form can _fly_ ," she reminded him smugly from her perch across his chest. Her dark hair spilled around her face and her stunning eyes glimmered with triumph.

"Oh?" he moaned pitifully. "I'm sorry for...that. The thing."

"You mean when you kissed me so hard I passed out? Apology accepted."

He did not trust the strange gleam in those disquieting eyes. "You're not angry?"

"Oh, no," she breathed, leaning forward until her lips were mere inches from his. "No one has _ever_ kissed me like that. Do it again."

He was convinced he'd either a) heard wrong or b) gone insane.

"Do it... again? But you fainted!"

"Well, stop short of that this time, but just do it!"

He complied. What else could he do?

It was a long, long time before she let him go home, and she only relented because he'd reminded her that Kagome would note his absence and worry, and that her worry would worry Sango in turn.

He waited until _after_ he'd gotten out of the well before transforming back to his feline form. Souta met him with dinner a moment later. The rain had stopped. He had a ladylove.

Life could not get better than that.

**X**

**Author's Note:**

> Whole lotta minor characters all up in this.
> 
> Jinenji: half-horse demon man, very strong but very gentle.
> 
> Shiori: half-bat demon girl, very sweet and powerful when it comes to barriers and the creation thereof.
> 
> Hiyashimaru: Nobunaga's white monkey from the very first few chapters/episodes.
> 
> Hachiemon: that badger-like thing that appears sometimes to help Miroku out. Sometimes, is also a yellow floating sausage balloon with eyes.
> 
> Kouryu: Souten's little dragon friend. Anime only.


End file.
